01.26
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.